We the Immortals
by Taliya
Summary: Over the course of thousands of years, there had always been two constants in the universe: one great detective and one phenomenal thief. Both hid behind pseudonyms, and both were destined to forever dance. Platonic Kaito-Shinichi. Written for Poirot Café's Themed Writing Contest #48: Symbol.


Detective Conan and Magic Kaito characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō.

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Warnings: Light philosophical discussion of death and (not-)suicide

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We the Immortals

By Taliya

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Word Count: 3758

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 _Kaitou KID [11:48:25 CMJ364ST]:_ KID Outwits Conan Again o(^◇^)o

 _Kaitou KID [11:48:31 CMJ364ST]:_ KID Escapes with Prize ۹(ÒہÓ)۶

 _Kaitou KID [11:48:38 CMJ364ST]:_ Conan Left Grasping at Air ٩(^ᴗ^)۶

 _Kaitou KID [11:48:46 CMJ364ST]:_ KID Triumphs Once More ٩(❤ε❤ )۶

 _Kaitou KID [11:48:51 CMJ364ST]:_ Gralean Crown Disappears ٩(๑˃́ꇴ˂̀๑)۶

 _Kaitou KID [11:48:57 CMJ364ST]:_ KID Steals Gralean Crown ❤〜٩( ˃́▿˂̀ )۶〜❤

 _Kaitou KID [11:49:12 CMJ364ST]:_ Meitantei…? 【・_・?】

 _Meitantei Conan [03:49:26 AQR142ST]:_ … done gloating yet?

 _Kaitou KID [11:49:31 CMJ364ST]:_ Never! ✧*｡٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧*｡

 _Meitantei Conan [03:49:47 AQR142ST]:_ Shut up for 6 hours, okay KID? It's almost 4 AM, I haven't gone to sleep yet, and I am extremely tired thanks to you.

 _Kaitou KID [11:49:53 CMJ364ST]:_ Not my fault you tried to stop me holographically via your miniature doppelgänger. You should come in person sometime. (´･_･`)

 _Meitantei Conan [03:49:59 AQR142ST]:_ I'm not in the same galaxy as you.

 _Kaitou KID [11:50:01 CMJ364ST]:_ So? c( O.O )ɔ

 _Meitantei Conan [03:50:06 AQR142ST]:_ I'M SLEEPING GOOD NIGHT.

 _Kaitou KID [11:53:40 CMJ364ST]:_ Sweet dreams, Meitantei. ( ु⁎ᴗᵨᴗ⁎)ु.zZzZz

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The abrupt glare of the equivalent of the Milky Way Galaxy's Earthen sunlight elicited a loud moan of protest as the curtains were drawn apart.

"Sir, it is time for you to get up," a formal but cultured male voice said, filling the room that had a decidedly minimalistic theme. The spacious bedroom had a bed, a desk, and a chest of drawers comprised of white enamel and stainless steel; the white walls were bare save for the one large, triple-paned window shaded by silvery curtains that had been pulled aside by the residential computing system.

"Five more minutes," the sole occupant of the bed mumbled, brown head of ruffled hair sliding further beneath the silver-colored comforter.

"You'll be late for your three o'clock appointment with the Triangulum Galaxy Patrol, Sir," the voice reminded.

"Oh, shut up," the one buried under the covers huffed as he wiggled even further beneath the duvet.

"Up," snapped the voice. At length it added a somewhat sullenly polite, "Sir," just before the bed cover was flung to the foot of the mattress with a burst of kinetic energy that was visualized with a shower of glittering, pale, sea green light.

"My eyes, SHERLOCK!" the man wailed as he curled into a tight ball, hiding his face with his arms. "My _eyes_!"

"If you hadn't been up at all hours of the night trying to capture 1412…" SHERLOCK tutted unrepentantly as the computer program laid out a set of clothing pulled from the walk-in closet attached to the bedroom on the bed with a flurry of pastel viridian. "You have ten minutes for your daily ablutions. Breakfast—or rather, lunch will be waiting for you in the kitchen."

The man groaned once more before mustering the energy to roll himself off the bed. Clad in nothing but a set of plain navy pajamas and sporting a classic case of bedhead, Kudou Shinichi appeared to be nothing more than your average _Homo sapiens sapiens_ —though the passage of time had nudged the evolution of humankind into several newer subspecies, each of which were suited to life on whatever planet and galaxy they inhabited.

Shinichi stumbled into the bathroom, brushing his teeth and washing his face. He patted moisturizer and UV radiation blocking cream onto his face and neck before fighting with his hair, admitting defeat when the cowlick at the crown of his head refused to be tamed. Changing into a bespoke charcoal grey suit paired with a lightly pinstriped white button up, Shinichi glided down the escalator stairs and padded into the kitchen.

A traditional breakfast spread of rice, miso soup, tamagoyaki, grilled fish, and a small salad, along with a steaming cup of matcha greeted him at the bar. Shinichi's smile was a mixture of nostalgia, sadness, and wistfulness at this little reminder of a home that was so very far away—not just in terms of distance, but time as well. A rectangular hologram hovered beyond the sustenance displaying the day's news on both the planet he lived on and the galaxy he lived in. Shinichi settled himself of the barstool and whispered a quiet, "I gratefully receive," in Japanese before he dug in with gusto. Old habits died hard—or rather, the cultural norms that he had grown up with were too ingrained for him to part with.

In between bites and browsing the newsfeeds, Shinichi peppered SHERLOCK with questions regarding the latest information on any of the multiple cases he was currently working on. All homes nowadays had a built-in residential computing system, though Shinichi's had much more personality than most. The residential computer had been reprogrammed from scratch and hardware-enhanced by Shinichi to speak Japanese—now a dead language in this universe of ever evolving languages and cultures—amongst other things. As a result, the artificial intelligence sassed Shinichi whenever the occasion presented itself.

Once he had been watered and fed, Shinichi fired up the computer in his office. He logged in using a very long string of characters that drew from the Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Lucian, Duscaean, and Altissian alphabets. This computer was packed with the latest in anti-viruses, firewalls, and the like—again, most of which Shinichi had programmed himself. It was all done to ensure that his identity remained a complete secret: no one should know that Kudou Shinichi and the renowned detective Meitantei Conan were one and the same.

Of course, Shinichi intended that this would be a secret he would take to the grave—provided he ever managed to stick a toe in one. Back when humans had solely inhabited Earth, Shinichi had been force-fed an experimental drug called Apoptoxin 4869 as a teenager, which had de-aged him to a child. He had then gone undercover using the alias Edogawa Conan to bring down the people responsible. He had been successful in the end, though an antidote was never formulated despite years of trial and error. Shinichi had then been forced to grow up a second time, cutting off the friendships he had made as himself and nurturing the ones he had cultivated as Conan.

It had been difficult, watching his old friends grow up without him. It had been even more gut-wrenching, watching them age once he realized that he himself had stopped aging sometime in his early thirties after becoming horribly ill as a result of the apoptoxin. It had been utterly heart-breaking, watching his friends and family die while he discovered that the poison he had been forced to ingest had rendered him immortal. He had needed to purposely age himself through the use of makeup and prosthetics up until he decided it was time for him as Edogawa Conan to "die". All of his worldly belongings had been willed and bequeathed to a "family friend"—himself under yet another alias.

And so began the long list of names that Shinichi lived behind, passing his estates from "relative" to "relative". And somewhere along the way, the name "Meitantei Conan" rose from the depths of the anonymous NETWORK to become the absolute best detective the universe had ever seen, operating in much the same way "L" from _Death Note_ had. Incidentally, Shinichi had gotten the idea for how to continue making a living whilst hiding his identity from the manga. Now, every galactic law enforcement headquarters had a HALO, or Holographic Awareness and Logistics Operator, that created realistic, sense-sensitive holograms Shinichi could use to project himself with as Meitantei Conan—again, a proprietary invention he had created and patented exclusively for Conan's use. The little halo-shaped device would hover at Conan's waist height and project a three-sixty hologram of the detective, enclosing the minicomputer inside the projected body.

Conan, of course, retained the appearance of a scrawny six-year-old human boy with oversized aviator glasses and a bright red bowtie who was the sole representative for the person behind the persona. It was much easier for Shinichi to maintain the static image of his younger self, and it made it much more difficult for others to link the boy to his actual self. The child could often be found at the scene of a crime, looking at, picking up, sniffing, even licking evidence. The fact that he was unable to physically contaminate a crime scene afforded him much more leeway with law enforcement officers. The halo would be charged at the station and activated when needed. The device also contained the same gadgetry the original soccer ball belt did, so officers had to periodically check to see if the ball and CO₂ cartridges needed replacing. Conan tended to knock out his murder culprits with suddenly appearing soccer balls, after all.

Shinichi settled himself in a comfortable recliner next to the computer and picked up a visor that fitted around his head: his personal inverse HALO. Wires ran from it and connected to the computer—it was his means of doing a full dive into the virtual world, the NETWORK. Normally used by gamers playing VRMMORPGs, Shinichi had customized it for use as Conan, so that he could interact with the real world by passing through the virtual one.

"Your meeting is in five minutes, Sir," SHERLOCK said as a gentle reminder.

"I know," the detective said. He slid the device over his head and relaxed after pressing the power button. "Watch over me, will you SHERLOCK?" he asked, and without waiting for confirmation, he whispered, "Engage."

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"Still working, Sir?" asked a Japanese-speaking male voice with exasperation laced into it.

" _Ah-choo!_ Of course! When has a little— _sniffle_ —cold ever stopped me?" another man's voice replied in kind.

The first voice sighed. "Unfortunately not an idiot then."

 _"_ _ARSÈNE!"_ There was a breathy, choked sob. "So mean!" There was a whirr of a sewing machine as the man muttered crossly, " _Knew_ I should have reprogrammed you with less sass after I finished the coding…"

In the background, a commercial-grade vent hood hummed, siphoning away the fumes of an ongoing chemistry experiment in distillation of specific neurotoxins. A large cabinet full of various compounds filled the rest of the wall not covered by the vent hood or the long laboratory table draped in various laboratory glassware and equipment, and several upright gas canisters stood at the end of the table. A milling machine took up another corner of the large warehouse of a room, surrounded by various pieces of metal of all shapes and sizes. A small nearby table contained a soldering gun and other equipment meant for small precision work. Also within the room were a white 1985 Alfa Romeo Spider Series 3, a turntable jukebox, a corner full of custom-made prosthetics, and an expansive collection of clothing covering every style of attire for all genders.

It was, in short, the workshop of the longest-running phantom thief, Kaitou KID. The thief himself had gone by a number of names over the years, though he had been born with the name Kuroba Kaito. A native of Japan on the planet Earth, Kaito had become the infamous magician thief at the young age of sixteen, hoping to both uncover and bring his father's killers to light, as well as find the object his father's killers had sought.

Kaito had found it in his late twenties, hosting heist after heist in his pursuit of Pandora. Pandora had been a gem said to glow red beneath the full moon and to cry tears of immortality when viewed beneath the light of the Volley Comet. The comet had reached the closest it would come to Earth for another ten-thousand years, though it needed to be viewed under telescope for the tail to be distinctly visible. Nonetheless, Anesidora's Heart had spilled crimson droplets onto his wrist, which in turn absorbed into his skin after running off the leather of his gloves.

The centuries had seen Kaito perfect a large number of skills and graduate with a staggering number of degrees. He had, in each lifetime, completed college and worked to ensure his income, but primarily because he had simply been bored. KID heists were not something he could sustain every week, after all—they took a decent amount of preparation work to execute as flawlessly as he liked. Over the ages Kaito accumulated his wealth to the point that he really did not even need to work. But Kaito was a social creature by nature, and he enjoyed the companionship his coworkers brought—even if he never bothered to date or marry.

Kaito finished sewing a new prototype of his hang glider-cape and stretched, savoring the feeling of his back popping. "Well, that's done," he said, and hung up the cape in a separate closet that housed KID's iconic outfit. He strode to a warp shaft and keyed in the code to return his house, the pad beneath him shuttling him to a twin pad his bedroom in a blur of violet light. "ARSÈNE?" he called out as he shuffled over to his computer.

"Yes, Sir?" asked the residential computing system.

"Any mail?" Kaito asked as he booked a hyperjet to CYG462 in two days' time—it was where he was planning to stage a heist in a month, and he wanted time to case out the museum on the larger of the two habitable planets that circled Kepler-462 in the Cygnus constellation.

"No mail," ARSÈNE replied promptly. "Shall I prepare dinner in one hour?"

Kaito picked up his own homemade version of a HALO. "I'll pass, ARSÈNE," he said as he reclined onto a worn but comfortable leather sofa as he prepared to full dive into the NETWORK. "Engage."

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The sound of laughter echoed within the halls of the Royal Lucian Museum of Natural History. Conan panted as he continued to pace the thief. Up a flight of stairs, and he had to abruptly swerve and skip-hop a few steps to avoid the netted counter-trap KID had placed beforehand and had just purposely set off. It irked him enough to send a soccer ball in the magician's direction. His irritation increased when he saw KID duck the ball.

Still, the adrenaline high he got at KID's heists was like nothing else lately in his life. KID might get away with the Leidean Star, but Conan was not worried about the theft. KID had proved over the thousands of years he had been active that he returned what he stole. The detective let out a soft curse as KID popped the lock on an exterior window at the front of the building and jumped out of it. He followed a few seconds later, snatching the keys from his pocket to start the engine of the jetbike that he had ridden there. He gunned the engine, darting up into the air and weaving into the lanes of Galdin Quay's traffic in pursuit of the thief.

He spotted his quarry ahead of him, cape flapping like flag behind him, and full-throttled the engine. He then swore and swerved sharply out of the traffic, slamming on the brakes as KID banked hard and spun in a half circle to face him. The pair hovered facing each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.

"Fancy meeting you here, Meitantei," KID crooned, smirking.

Conan grinned fiercely as he replied, "As if I'd be anywhere else."

The thief hummed. "Well, you could always be here in person, you know," he suggested.

"And allow someone to see what I actually look like?" The detective mimed being stabbed through the heart. "Perish the thought!"

KID shrugged. "Feel like returning this for me?" he asked, holding up the Leidean Star.

Conan pretended to consider. "What do I get this time for playing retriever?"

"My sincerest gratitude, of course!" the magician thief proclaimed with a beam.

The detective laughed aloud at that. "No deal, KID."

KID pouted. "Too bad," he replied, and tossed the yellow topaz at his rival.

"Wha—hey!" Conan sputtered as he dove with the bike to catch the gem. By the time he had the stone safely in his grasp, KID was gone. "CHEATER!" he shouted without heat into the Eosian twilight.

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 _Meitantei Conan [19:37:20 AQR142ST]:_ You there, KID?

 _Kaitou KID [23:37:26 CMJ364ST]:_ Meitantei! ٩(^ᴗ^)۶

 _Kaitou KID [23:37:28 CMJ364ST]:_ What's up?

 _Meitantei Conan [19:37:32 AQR142ST]:_ Nothing, really. Just wanted to talk.

 _Kaitou KID [23:37:34 CMJ364ST]:_ （・∩・）？

 _Kaitou KID [23:37:36 CMJ364ST]:_ I've got the time if you do. Want to meet up?

 _Meitantei Conan [19:37:37 AQR142ST]:_ Please.

 _Kaitou KID [23:37:40 CMJ364ST]:_ MWGEAR35139UTM240065068 works for you?

 _Meitantei Conan [19:37:42 AQR142ST]:_ Yes.

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"You haven't changed," KID said by way of greeting as Conan faded into view in a stream of blue light. There was an old humor to his voice.

"Neither have you," the detective replied in kind, glancing quickly over the virtual image of the thief.

The odd pair stood at the crest of a mountain ridge overlooking a forested river valley that bordered a wide sea stretching to the horizon with an inlet bay. A glance in the other direction revealed rolling mountains with snow-capped Mount Fuji towering in the distance like a silent sentinel. Overhead, an ocean of stars littered the inky, cloudless blackness, which was marred only by the faint belt of the Milky Way and a full moon and the faint orange light of the coming dawn along the eastern horizon. The area was something KID had created just for the two of them: a hidden jewel within the NETWORK that served as their haven, a replica of a pristine Japan that existed before the area had become a sprawling metropolis of concrete and steel.

It was here that they were no longer the lifetimes of rivals as they had been; there was no media here to mediate their words. Though neither man knew the true identity of the other, they had still, over the course of millennia, still become friends despite not knowing the other's true name. They had both discussed the reasons they still existed: KID due to his brush with the Gem of Immortality, and Conan with the Poison that failed to fulfill its purpose. Over the years, they had shared many a philosophical discussion on the crest of the digital Mount Tanzawa. This evening proved to be no different.

"What's on your mind, Meitantei?" KID quietly asked.

Conan sank heavily down onto a weather-worn stone, his eyes taking in the shadowy silhouettes of the mountains and the sea. A pleasantly cool breeze swirled by, pulling lightly at KID's cape and Conan's fringe. KID himself chose to remain standing, gaze locked upwards at the heavens. "Do you think anything was meant to last as long as we have, KID?" His voice was quiet and tired, a stark contrast to the energy and demeanor he displayed at heists and cases—it was going to be one of the detective's more somber nights, it seemed.

"Probably not anything sentient," KID replied after some contemplation. "Celestial bodies last for millions of years, but anything with any sort of cognitive sentience, probably not. I don't think our brains were meant to retain ten-thousand years' worth of memories."

The pair of them had both confessed to not truly being able to recall much of their earlier centuries. They had tended to bleed together without any distinctive events—and that included the people they had met and befriended. Even the multiple times both of them had died in various ways failed to be remarkable events. Dying, to them, was nothing noteworthy—not when they were unable to pass on.

Conan leaned onto his hands, turning his stare upwards. "What do you think happens when you die?" he asked rhetorically, though the both of them knew it was a topic they had discussed a number of times previously. Even so, it did not keep either of them from wondering. "Aside from the act of actually dying, I don't think it'd be painful," the detective mused.

"I doubt being dead hurts," KID said with a hint of dark humor in his voice. "Otherwise where do all the tales of seeing the smiling faces of departed loved ones fall?" Had he not scanned in pictures from his first lifetime, KID was sure he would have forgotten the faces of those he had truly loved: Kuroba Chikage, Kuroba Touichi, Nakamori Aoko. "Do you think about them a lot?"

Conan hummed, having no need to clarify who the "them" KID had referred to were. "I do." His face fell from facing the heavens back to the darkened landscape illuminated by moonlight. "I wonder where they are and what they are doing, whether they have been reincarnated or remain in the afterlife, and if they ever think of me too." He smiled depreciatively. "Though, I barely remember what they look like and what kind of people they were. All I know now is that they were once important to me and that I should remember them."

KID laughed quietly. "Same here. I only recall the pictures I have of them when I think about them as people."

Comfortable silence settled between thief and detective, broken only by the buzz of the cicadas, the chirruping of crickets, and the chirping of birds. By now the sky had lightened to a deep royal blue, fading to rich pinks and yellows as the sun rose. Together, they watched a new dawn in this virtual sanctuary of theirs.

"KID?" Conan murmured.

"Hmm?" replied the thief.

There was quiet as the detective considered his wording. "If this is what eternity is like…" Here his gaze shifted from the horizon to his companion. KID felt the change of focus and turned his eyes onto Conan, listening. "If this is what eternity is like, then I'm glad I have someone like you to spend it with," he finished.

KID huffed a small smile, the expression rueful, sad, and pleased all at once. "A thief and his detective," he softly, "Or is it a detective and his thief?"

"Who says it can't be both?" Conan said with an amused chuckle.

"The only outward symbols of who we are, destined to forever dance," KID intoned dramatically.

The detective snorted. "Barou," he chided.

The thief sniffed at his companion, affronted. "But I _do_ catch colds."

By the time the sun fully rose above the horizon, the ridge of Mount Tanzawa was silent and empty, and thief and detective were back to being thief and detective.

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Author's Note: The idea for this fic was inspired by ToukoTai's _Never Let Your Fear Decide Your Fate_ (AO3). There was so much world building here I felt a little overwhelmed, but I'm glad I slogged through it. Writing has been rough for me, and I'm really happy to be back. This was more of a rambling piece with no real plot, but I wanted to get their experiences and thoughts out and with the understanding that they never uncovered each other's true identities. CMJ364 refers to star name HD 45364 within the constellation Canis Major, AQR142 the star HD 142 within Aquarius, CYG462 Cygnus' Kepler-462; these stars have known planets orbiting them. ST is abbreviated for "standardized time". SHERLOCK and ARSÈNE are the equivalent of Tony Stark/Ironman's JARVIS in the Marvel Universe. _Homo sapiens sapiens_ is the correct scientific name of the modern human race, listed as Genus species subspecies. Shout out to _Final Fantasy XV_ , as I happen to like that game and you'll see a couple of references. "Baka wa kaze o hikanai"—Idiots don't catch colds: a Japanese saying. I hope you enjoyed it.

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Completed: 01.10.2018


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